Trust in the Spanish political system is incredibly low, with 90 per cent of Spaniards saying they do not trust political parties, according to the Eurobarometer poll conducted by the European Union.
The EU-wide study found that the level of distrust in Spain was higher than the already staggeringly high European average of 75 per cent.
Meanwhile, 75 per cent of the Spanish public do not trust the Congress of Deputies (the lower house of Spain’s legislative branch, equivalent to Britain’s House of Commons) in the national parliament, compared to the EU average of 60 per cent distrust for equivalent bodies. Seventy-four per cent also said they distrusted the government, the newspaper La Vanguardia reports.
While the Spanish distrust of political parties is among the highest in the European Union, it was beaten by Slovenia and Latvia, both with 93 per cent.
The Netherlands was the only country in the study in which the majority of respondents (52 per cent) tended to trust the country’s political parties, followed by Denmark with 43 per cent trusting and 57 per cent feeling distrust.
This year’s Eurobarometer is the first time the United Kingdom has not been included in the survey since it departed the bloc, but the previous 2020 figures show the British people had some of the highest levels of distrust of political parties in Europe, at 84 per cent.
Europeans More Concerned About Immigration Than Climate Change, Despite Massive Media Attention https://t.co/ZaIThxkvrP
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The European Union, meanwhile, enjoys a much higher level of trust among the respondents, with 49 per cent saying they had trust in the institutions of the political bloc. The Portuguese (78 per cent) and Irish (74 per cent) have the most trust in the EU, while the French and the Greeks having the least at just 39 and 37 per cent respectively.
Italy, which saw 44 per cent of Italians say they wanted to remain in the European Union in a poll in 2018, saw 44 per cent say they trusted the European Union in the Eurobarometer survey, with 46 distrusting the bloc.
According to the study, the gap between trust in the European Union and national governments is the highest measured since the autumn of 2010.
The high level of trust in the European Union is somewhat remarkable given respondents said Coronavirus was their top concern with the bloc, an area in which the Union has been harshly criticised for its vaccine failures.
Some 38 per cent of respondents stated that health issues during the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic had become the number one concern, jumping 16 points from 22 per cent in the Summer of 2020. Economic concerns were pushed into second place, where it remains unchanged at 35 per cent.
Immigration, which has declined in areas such as Greece during the pandemic but has risen in others like the Spanish Canary Islands, saw a decrease in importance among respondents, going from 23 per cent to 18 per cent. In 2019, the topic had been the number one issue of concern.
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